Guard at ICE facility charged with sexual abuse

The AP has a story about a guard at the Willacy Detention Center accused of sexually abusing a detainee in 2008. ICE recently announced that it is no longer using that facility.

Human Rights Watch reported last August that ICE detainees were vulnerable to sexual abuse in detention centers.
ICE has vowed to take steps to better protect its detainees from sexual assaults allegations surfaced last spring that a guard at the T. Don Hutto immigration facility in Texas had sexually assaulted several detainees.

Here is a list from ICE’s website of accomplishments in its efforts to bring about detention center reform. This week, the agency pulled detainees from a center in Utah amid questions about conditions at the facility. The real question is when is the agency going to fully implement its Performance Based National Detention Standards?

Here is the story on the latest arrest from AP:

A guard at an immigrant detention center in South Texas is scheduled to appear before a federal judge after spending the weekend in jail on a charge that he sexually abused a detainee in 2008.

The Justice Department accuses 31-year-old Edwin Rodriguez of Raymondville of having sex with a woman who was awaiting deportation at the Willacy Detention Center in October 2008. The court hearing is set for Monday afternoon.

Rodriguez was an employee of Management & Training Corporation, or MTC, a contractor that operates the facility for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Rodriguez was arrested Wednesday. His attorney did not return calls seeking comment.